Technology professionals in DevOps, Web product management and developer roles are not able to focus on priority business and career growth activities due to time spent troubleshooting application issues, according to research from IT management software provider SolarWinds.

This reality contradicts the main principles of DevOps and places increased pressure on IT professionals to enhance innovation and performance within their organizations, the report said.

The study is based on a survey of 336 professionals in the U.S. and Canada the company fielded in September 2018, and shows that those in DevOps, WPM, and development spend most of their days troubleshooting. Nearly half of the respondents noted that troubleshooting was in the top three tasks they manage on a daily basis.

Because of the time spent on troubleshooting tasks, they’re unable to devote time to important priorities such as building product roadmaps, deploying new applications, and strategizing future innovations with business leaders. None of these three tasks appears in their top three daily activities, according to the survey.

Among the key findings:

Troubleshooting application issues is the number one activity technology professionals spend their time on, with 48 percent of respondents choosing this as a top three task.

53 percent of DevOps professionals said troubleshooting application issues is the top task completed on a given day.

Developers rank troubleshooting application issues second in the top three at 52 percent.

On average, DevOps and WPM professionals spend less than 25 percent of their time proactively optimizing performance of their environments.